The Dreamer

by John Bullaro

The following story is creative nonfiction—some fact, mostly fiction. However, the message is real: dreams are the elixir of life.

Talk about slippery slopes. The slide from affluence to bankruptcy took less than one year. My ex-wife greased the skids by hiring a shyster divorce attorney, known by his colleagues as Dirty Harry. About this same time my employer—(High-rise Engineering) moved our operation to India. The boss hired a Swami living Sri Lanka to do my job (actually he was an engineer). When I came up air for the third time, a civil law judge awarded our house on the beach in Cayucos, California to my wife, Betsy Gent. She produced a bogus prenuptial agreement with my signature forged. For good measure he threw in the furniture, cars, and a boat. I was grateful he didn't order me to be her man--servant.

The good judge granted Betsy's request for a restraining order. She claimed she felt threatened by me. Why not? My guess is that Betsy felt guilty about stealing the house with a phony pre-nuptial agreement. She said she was worried I'd come calling at the house with my prized Glock. The idea definitely had merit.

When it was all over, my path to financial ruin ended when I rented a furnished apartment overlooking an RV storage yard in Los Osos, California. My previous view of the blue Pacific was replaced by a white sea of aluminum elephants with wheels. 

Years ago I loved reading biographies about famous mountain men. I found their lives were more thrilling to read than the best adventure fiction. Jim Bridger, William Sublette, Thomas Fitzpatrick, "Liver Eating" Johnston, and Kit Carson became my heroes. These young men left their family homes in the east and started new lives of trapping and guiding in the mountains.

As I sat in my furnished apartment—depressed, watching people park their RV's across the street in the storage yard—I was convinced I should follow the path of a modern mountain men. All I'd needed was a tent, 30-30 rifle, freeze dried food (which the ol' boys didn't have), and a spot deep in the wilderness. I considered the Ventana Mountains that run along the coast in Big Sur, but felt wandering hikers would intrude too often. I needed deep isolation, a place few people would stumble into. The Sierra Mountains fit that requirement. The Sierra has vast tracts of wilderness isolated from civilization. With ample game I could hunt and fish when necessary.

I knew the United States wilderness frontier today was very different from the nineteenth century frontier. I reasoned, with so many thousands of acres of wilderness, I would be like the proverbial needle in a hay stack.
If the need arose, I could hunt, fish, and trap. I never hunted; the only thing I ever shot was a quail with my BB gun when I was ten. My fishing skills were null and void. Trapping, that was something I didn't believe in, but what the hell; this was a dream at best. I believed dreams were essential during hard times. These were definitely hard times.

I launched my dream life by applying for a wilderness permit outside of Fresno, California, near Pine Mountain Reservoir. The head ranger in charge of the U.S. Forest Service Station reviewed my permit application and said, "Before I can issue you a wilderness permit, you have to have a pail and shove."

"Why," I exclaimed, "I don't intend to play in the sand." My answer didn't set well with him.

"Mr. Anker," he said with a snarl on his lips, "Those items are for fire suppression. They are required to get this permit."

"Okay, where do I get these utensils?"

"Downtown Fresno."

"By the way," I asked, "How long are the permits good for?"

"Thirty days."

"Thirty Days?,"' I shouted. "I plan on staying a year."

"Impossible," he said. "You come out in thirty days. You'll be assigned a zone for camping and can renew the permit only if there's room in your zone."

"Zone, what zone?" I asked.

"The wilderness is divided into zones. Your permit will be valid for only one zone. We don't want to have any zone over used."

At that moment I felt like a kid who just leaned that there wasn't a Santa Claus. "Any more rules I should know about?"

"When I issue the permit you'll be assigned a zone and receive a list of zone policies you must adhere to." His snarl changed to a blank officious look.

When I left the ranger station, I felt the mountain man dream was about to slip away. Then the thought hit me, "The hell with the permit. It's a free country. I'll just camp where I please." So, after hiding the car in the brush, I took off and headed for the deep wilderness.

**************

My first day in the wilderness was glorious. My worries evaporated: debt collectors, ex-wife, bank calls, the restraining order, all gone from my mind. I was free. My only real fear was the rangers. They could judge me an illegal wilderness alien and throw me in jail. Terrible thought, so I dismissed it.

I noticed most rangers carry guns. "Not a humanitarian approach to land management," I thought. My clandestine camping life had to remain well hidden. To balance the scales with the armed constables, I had to know what they were up to. Two nights later, as the sun sank in the west, I retrieved my car from its hiding place and drove to Fresno. At the local Radio Shack I purchased a UHF radio and a small 5 watt solar panel to keep the battery charged.

Within a week a local rancher, riding herd on his cows that grazed his cattle on public lands, saw smoke from my campfire and reported me to the Forest Service. On my new radio I heard the head ranger tell the rancher he was certain he knew who the wilderness scab was, then heard my name mentioned and knew it was time to relocate.

For the next two weeks, in my new location, I avoided detection. Then on an overcast, damp, and gloomy Monday I heard on my radio the ranger boys were planning to raid my new camp—I had been discovered by another cowboy. Knowing my presence was a serious offense to these guys, I gathered up my things and headed deeper into the wilderness.

I walked all day, eventually coming upon the South Fork of The Kern River. Using three ground features I had located on my map, I triangulated for my precise position. I was less than a mile from where I parked my car. As often happens when walking without a specific compass heading, I had traveled in a large circle. In three miles I'd be at the Pine Flats Reservoir north of Fresno, where I had started, and not too far away from the ranger station.  I spent the night by the river and the next day walked south to Pine Flats. There I hitched a ride to Fresno with a produce trucker.

Sunday in Fresno is depressing. The world was once again my enemy. I had no food, money, or place to sleep. I called an old girl friend, Ursula, collect. Bless her heart, she accepted the call charge and agreed to pick me up. After hearing my slippery slope story, she offered to let me stay with her for awhile. After we hung up, I couldn't recall why I didn't stay with Ursula when we had dated after my divorce.

That night she bought us dinner. That night she drove me to pick up my car. Three hours later I was back at her condominium in Morro Bay, situated on a hillside with an ocean view. She made me breakfast at three in the morning. Early the next morning I woke up and found a note: "Went to the office. Make yourself at home."

Seated by her living widow, I looked at the Pacific Ocean and it occurred to me that my life was a merry-go-round. I had left this area almost two months earlier with a dream of being a mountains man—free to do as I pleased—and ended up back on the Central Coast—no dream and in the same financial, physical, and emotional state as when I left. Now that the dream of being a mountain man had evaporated, I wondered what new dream would emerge to make my life worthwhile. 

Hmm, I thought, with the price of gold at an all time high, I'll be a modern day prospector: pan, shovel, and tent are all the tools I'll need.